The Social Media Championship: How NFL Teams Stack Up

Super Bowl XLVIII is only a few short weeks away and I couldn’t be more excited. And it’s not only because I’m a major football fanatic (#GoBroncos), but also because it’s one of the biggest social media events of the year.

Real-time marketing has become an absolute necessity not only around the Super Bowl, but the entirety of the NFL season. In recent years, teams and players have caught on to the importance of social media, harnessing its power to dig deep and capture the emotions of their fans and consistently engage with them all year long.

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Are You Crisis-Prepared?

As a PRSA member, I recently got to attend a luncheon focused on crisis communications. This luncheon couldn’t have come at a more fitting time: Right after the Boston Marathon bombings and right when Disneyland had to shut down some of their major attractions. Not that you could compare a Disneyland ride closure to a marathon bombing. But being in Orange County right next to Disneyland, it’s an appropriate topic to talk about when it comes to a crisis, especially when the senior vice president of Disney’s marketing team is on the panel.

And consider what just happened in Bavaria, Germany. They had such devastating flooding, it was even all over the news here in the States. I recently read about BikeSherpa, a company planning bike trips for their customers in that area of Germany. They had just put together a whole Facebook marketing strategy, when the flood hit and they couldn’t implement any of it. So what do you do in these instances? (more…)

How To Attract Gen Y – Are You Being The Right Kind Of Social?

Over the past year I’ve really noticed the change in social media, and how it is being used beyond personal use and being more integrated into business. And after reading this article about why social media is more important than ever before, I couldn’t help but agree. This is where businesses today should start to focus more on – their digital presence, their social media profiles. (more…)

5 Common Social Media Mistakes Brands Commit

As I was doing my daily reading this morning, I came across this article. It resonated quite well with me. Here at Branding Personality, we consult many clients that come to us with exactly these problems. ‘5 Common Social Media Mistakes Brands Commit‘ originally appeared on PR Daily. Digital marketing has come a long way in the last few years, evolving from a nice addition to your marketing strategy to a necessity for most businesses.

Thankfully, most small- and medium-size businesses (SMEs) avoid creating a social media presence just for the sake of being online, but there are other traps they fall into instead. Here are the most common problems. (more…)

How to Use Social Media Like a Kardashian

It is no secret that the Kardashians are famous for simply that, being famous. But how did they rise from a reality TV show to American Royalty in just 7 years? Branding. Not only do they have their own personal clothing, cosmetic, and housewares lines but they also use social media to promote everything else they do.

From Instagram to Keek, the Kardashians have taken over the social media world one tweet at a time. And with Kim’s upcoming child from her beau Kanye West, another branding mogul will be born. It wouldn’t be surprising if the new Kardashian-West got their own twitter account to track how many bottles they’ve consumed in a day.

Don’t be Afraid to be a Diva
Okay, so maybe the pictures of the Kardashians in bikinis and holding $10,000 Hermes handbags are part of what bring them followers. However, they don’t just post about anything and everything.  They post about things that are true to who they are and their brand.

Before you post things to your social media accounts, ask these questions:

1. Is this post representing my business well?

2. What popular hashtags are applicable to this post?

3. Am I linking followers back to my company’s website?

Facebook

Everyone including Kim Kardashian’s cat, Mercy, knows how to use Facebook. Facebook is a great way to link people back to your website. Glam up your Facebook page and fill it with new and exciting information. Unlike other social media outlets, Facebook gives followers the opportunity to really learn about your business and website.  Make sure to include valid information in your “about” section and stay on top of Facebook posts.

To gain more Facebook traffic, advertise free giveaways to followers of your Facebook page. Being cheap never got the Kardashian sisters anywhere.  They are always using Facebook to offer followers and fans free merchandise. After all, nobody can resist some free swag.

Twitter

Twitter is the Kardashians favorite social media tool, and rightfully so.  With the ability to reach across your fan-base in just seconds, you can send a tweet anywhere.  Even when they are across the world, the Kardashians are still tweeting and maintaining a relationship with their Twitter followers.

Delegate a good 10 to 15 minutes to Twitter a day. Maybe even two minutes every hour to send a quick tweet out into the Twitter-sphere. By demonstrating an on going presence people will link back to you.

Worse comes to worse, hashtag #kardashian. That should bring you a few new followers.

Instagram

With over 6 million followers on Instagram, it is no secret that Kim Kardashian uses Instagram for just about everything. Instagram is a way to connect to fans, the world, and other businesses strictly through the means of photography. Although they Instagram pictures of nothing less than their fabulous lifestyle, the Kardashians are constantly promoting their brands. By snapping quick pics of your businesses leading product, followers can have access to your business and personal life. Much like with Twitter, Instagram utilizes hashtags to attract more users back to your Instagram page.  Use at least one hashtag with every picture you post, in order to link people back to you and attract more followers.

Start by taking pictures that are of your niche. Advertise new products, new employees, or screen shots of new posts on your blog.

Keek

Keek is the newest addition to the social media family.  Kylie and Kendall Jenner were the first in the Kardashian clan to start utilizing Keek. Keek acts similar to Instagram except you can post small videos instead of pictures. Because Keek is newer to the social media world, start getting people excited about this new tool!

Advertising

Last but not least, always promote your social media pages on your website, business cards, and anywhere in your office. Encourage people to like your Facebook page and follow you on other social media tools.

Theo Schmidt has worked as a software engineer in Los Angeles since graduating from UCLA in 2006 with a degree in computer science. He spent five summers working for an SEO Calgary company, where he developed a love for social media. He enjoys spending time in the outdoors and is an environmental activist.

Content Marketing Workshop: The Honest Company

This is a 60-90 minute content marketing workshop designed for a social media and/or marketing team. This workshop can be done as a small group activity, or you can divide a large group into 2-4 groups for the Analysis Exercises and Challenge Questions.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze an example of a company that uses content marketing to consistently engage with customers and build strong brand awareness
• Discuss how The Honest Company uses social media platforms i.e. different types of content and customer engagement
• Apply knowledge to takeaway challenge questions to perform self-analysis of your company’s content marketing (more…)

Fresh Social Media Content Ideas for Architect Firms

This morning I was at the Society for Design Administration, an affiliate of the American institute of Architects. A great group of people who, as one worded it are “responsible to take care of everything else going on at the architect firm.” Here is the presentation, it shows a structural approach to social media for architects.

 
Architects have interesting content for social media. They have a product that a lot of people want, but are not always able to afford it. However many people dream about building their own unique place. So great opportunity for social media content.

Pinterest Ideas for Architects

The questions in the room were mostly related to Pinterest.
Should they be using Pinterest? And how should they use Pinterest?

A few ideas that I shared were:

#1. Share your firm’s portfolio on Pinterest

Your audience can get to know your  firms work and get inspired with the work that you do.

#2. Your clients create a Pinterest board with their architecture inspiration & ideas

You can also have your clients create a Pinterest board of what features they want in their house, ideas of designs they accumulate. It’s much easier than pictures ripped out of magazines, a whole lot cheaper and better organized. You can have multiple people collaborate on a Pinterest board, so each person can add their pictures to it.

I am the co-founder of The Open School, a school that is opening in 2015, and currently in the pre-stages to build. We are very much in the design and idea collection phase, and have our own board to collect design ideas for the school.

Also when a client finds yet another picture, they can easily pin it to their Pinterest board, instead of bringing it to the next meeting, scan and email or anything like it. It’s always up-to-date.

#3. Categorize your firms portfolio into specific boards based on price, style, etc

Categorize your portfolio and ideas into boards based on location, demographic, style or budget. So people can browse and get ideas related to what fits them.

Some of my clients would be jealous of architects, a lot of people like cool houses. People will “like” it on Facebook, and frequently share it with friends. Use that to your benefit.

Get ideas at bigger Facebook communities that share architecture. Curate the ideas that work for your target audience and share them on your Facebook group.

If you want to hear our ideas to crank up your architects’ firms social media image, please fill out the form on the right and we will share fresh ideas for your social media presence!

How would you measure the ROI in social media?

Photo credits: Mark Schaefer

Social Media is a communication tool, and its actually a word to describe a multitude of communication tools. So to discover the Return on Investment on Social Media, you have to look at each tool independently.

Not only that, you have to take a look at how you are using that tool.

Even replacing the word Social Media with the word Facebook does not make it into a question easily answered, as it depends on what you are doing with that communication tool (Facebook) and what you are trying to achieve.

When I work with customers in social media, we set a goal upfront. Usually this is lead generation/sales/drive traffic to stores and our points to measure are:

End goals:

• Filled out forms (leads)
• Sales (for e-commerce)
• phone calls
• sign ups for newsletters
• Info specified by lead source and day/time
• Number of people checking out products/services pages
• Number of people to see the location/directions/opening hours page (local services companies, restaurants)

We measure this through our inhouse developed lead tracking system Hatch.

What we measure ‘in between’ to track if we are getting to the end goal (mentioning the most important ones regarding goal achievement):

1. Number of conversations per social platform
2. Depth of conversation (how many replies)
3. How many people view the content
4. How many people view the lead generating page (or app)
5. Number of phone calls

Then we also analyze the audience who is consuming the content.
We use that information to check if that matches the potential leads we are getting and better suit the content to the audience that we want to get or is consuming it already.

For other great answers on the question: “How would you measure the ROI in social media?”, check out answers to this question on Quora.

Giants & Dodgers Use Twitter to Reach Fans Outside the Ballpark

Major League Baseball has been around for over a century and is always referred to as “America’s Favorite Pastime,” but what happens when age-old enjoyment has to keep up with modern day technology? Fans will always support their teams, but in today’s world can MLB clubs do more to increase their fan-base? The answer is yes. Lets take a look at the social media uses through one of the biggest age-old rivalries in MLB history – the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. (more…)

Changing The Way You Tweet, To Gain More Followers!

Face it, following hundreds of people who tweet the same content in the same “proper” manner gets old fast. Think about the most entertaining people to follow – what makes them entertaining? We’ve all been programmed to think about what we tweet or post before doing so. We’re all told to ask ourselves how the content we’re posting will reflect on our professional lives. We all come across something we find funny, but fail to share it because we don’t want to offend people, which then causes us to go out and post some other “interesting” yet dry content. (more…)